With the curt closure of any other option than turn the priority schools into charters,  the DOE threw down the gauntlet to all of Delaware’s parents.

They moved.  Now it is our turn.   Here are our options as parents of our children…

  • We can accept it.
  • We can fight it.
  • What we can’t do … is accept it and fight it at the same time… That is laughingly impossible.

As parents, we now need to decide.

  • Is this what we want (turning public schools into charters)?
  • What can we do about it?

Some things are out of our control.  We can now accept that the DOE is not remotely interested in responding to parents’ needs, and therefore what goes on inside of there is for all intents and purposes, out of our control.  Since we can’t impact anything that goes on inside there through influence or any other option,  wasting any effort on them is futile, pointless and diverts effort from what is really important….

Let us look at what we do control.

  • We control board members by our vote.  But we just saw they have no power; what good is that?
  • Money?  No, most of it is automatically shifted over without any direct control from us.  If we wanted to stop payment, most of us couldn’t…
  • We control whether our kids take or don’t take the test….

Would our kids not taking the test have an impact?

Yes. it would:

  • Show the world that this administration is going down this path without the backing of the American people.
  • Show the world that parents don’t have to follow orders from a 30 year old ex gym teacher put into power as a chief for change… (who has never had kids in school)
  • Show the world that our government was intended “for the people, of the people, and by the people”, and we don’t have to follow our government when it goes awry, forgetting that very tenant of its existence.
  • Plus, it would show the world whether or not, we really care for our kids…  Most of us say we do automatically (like how could one not).  But our lives rarely put us on the spot to ever test our courage and stand for something that protects them from harm… (WE do live very sheltered lives for the most part compared to a huge section of the world’s population)

For if we don’t have the guts to stand up for our kids, as did Washington DC, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Cleveland, New York, and Chicago parents all lack the guts when their time came to stand up and be counted, then I guess it is ok for charterization to go forward to the detriment of all but those raking in cash…   After all, under the tenants of “freedom”, one is responsible for achieving everything they are capable if their actions do not harm others in the process of their execution…

For there to be “harm”, someone has to stand up and point it out… If no one does, or if no one listens to the one who does, then really, from the both the legal and practical side of things there was no harm done, and the action should probably go forward to the ultimate betterment of society at large…..

Although charterization is described in its selling as being beneficial to education, there is plenty of evidence now showing that is a lie.  In fact, all evidence points to the exact opposite.  Charterization lowers the total average ability of all students to succeed in our future world….  What that last sentence means, is that you may be able to cull out the best students and put them in an environment where they can do well. What such an action does, is doom all others to do worse…  So you have more students doing poorly, just a few doing better, and the average drops like rocks into a very deep lake.

Those who say (Dave Sokola) such action at least saves a few children from failure, can be put in their place by this analogy.  It is like saying that people should be allowed to celebrate by firing guns up into the air… After all, the bullets are aimed up in the air, not at people, so why shouldn’t free people be allowed to express their exuberance in such a fashion?.. The obvious reason is that those bullets must come down… And when they do, real people ARE hurt… WE now know that is exactly what happens to all those students who cannot get into charter schools, whenever and every single time charters are allowed to open up next to public schools… Those remaining in public schools must continue in what was once considered a failing school, but now is a failing school with even fewer resources at their disposal…   Bottom line:  it doesn’t end up good even for those in charters… Because charters don’t teach as well as do public schools.  So the best are not as bright as they would have been had they remained in public school;  all others are not as bright as they would have been had they remained in a fully funded public school… With the advent of charters, everyone loses…. Just look at Washington DC, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Cleveland, New York, and Chicago as proof…  Without Charter Schools, everyone wins… Washington State which opened it’s first charter school (now failed) this very year, is near the top of the NAEP mathmatics testing scale….

naep wash state

A whole state without charters… near the top of the national average….

Delaware is going the wrong way by putting more, not fewer charters into play.

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Bottom line:  is how can you fight back against those with a ring in their nose tied to a chain of mighty corporate sponsors?…

Withhold your child from taking the test….

If enough Delawareans do that (in just weeks it begins)…. the entire nightmare all goes away…   Think of  it as the equivalent of your ancestors grabbing their rifles to go out and fight the British marching up their road….  It is called…. “doing what you must to give your child a better future”.